Babri Masjid Verdict Now on India

It seems about the only people in India who want the Allahabad High Court to pronounce its verdict in the long-running Ayodhya religious dispute are some of the litigants involved in the case—and the now the nation’s Supreme Court.

Most other people seem quite happy for the verdict to be prolonged, not just until after the Commonwealth Games—riots before or during the Games could seal the fate of India’s global image, which already has taken a beating—but indefinitely.

AP Photo

A Hindu holy man walks past security personnel in Ayodhya.

Yet the Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a petition to stay the verdict and cleared the way for the Allahabad High Court to issue its verdict on whether the rights to the disputed site, home to the destroyed Babri Masjid mosque, belong to Hindus or Muslims.

We can understand why the Supreme Court felt that was the most sensible option given that most of the litigants on both sides of the case had said that mediation had been tried before and showed no chance of working this time. The only reasonable grounds on which the top court could have continued to defer the verdict might have been if an out-of-court settlement seemed like even a slim prospect.

But it didn’t. So now we have the prospect that one of the most contentious, closely watched and potentially explosive legal cases of the last few decades will come on the eve of India’s big party at which it hoped to showcase its modernity and its sophistication to the rest of the world, with the Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony Oct. 3.

The Allahabad verdict is likely before that since one of the three judges deciding the case is scheduled to retire Oct. 1. There is also a chance he will be given an extension, if the chief justice of the High Court requests it, the Supreme Court chief justice confirms it, and the federal government approves it. But it seems more likely that the bench, having been primed for a verdict release last Friday, will go ahead with all dispatch to put its verdict out now.

The worst-case scenario of course is that it sparks a repeat (even a pale imitation would be bad enough) of the carnage that followed the destruction of the mosque by a Hindu mob in 1992. And the government and the Indian people will be on tenderhooks.

Yet this is also an opportunity—an opportunity, as we have reported before, for India to show that even if the Games preparation has reflected “old India” to the world, the reaction to the Ayodhya verdict can showcase a new India where secularism is rising, religious bigotry is diminishing, economic self-interest is paramount, and an inclusive nationalism is being embraced.

The Supreme Court has thrown the ball into the Allahabad High Court. It, in turn, is about to throw the ball into the Indian people’s court, where the real verdict on Babri Masjid will be written.